First time from primary to keg.

[Jim W]

OK. Hopefully by the end of the day, I will no longer be a virgin.
I have two questions about going from my primary to a keg.
First, do I need to add any priming sugar at all, to my brew. I am under the impression that I don't, but wanted to run it by everyone before I did anything.
Second, I do not have my CO2 tank yet. Is it ok to transfer the beer, without putting any pressure on it? I am thinking that should be OK as well, but again, I always like to ask first. If not, is there anyone out there that I can meet up with this weekend, and pressurize it?

[Davin]

You don't have to prime a keg if you are going to force carb it.

As for not having any co2, some may say don't move it since you will have air in the keg and run the risk of oxidation without filling the tank with co2 first.

How long do you think its going to be before you get your co2? It is possible to add priming sugar to the keg and let it naturally carb like you would a bottle conditioned version, but its going to take just as long as bottle conditioning as well.

I think I'm going to be Saturday morning if you need to do a quick force carb, though I'm in Henderson so depending on your location others might be closer.

[Chris Norrick]

You definitely don't need sugar.

As for no CO2, I'd wait to transfer till you get some. The beer will be fine in the primary.

My normal procedure for transfer is to pressurize the empty keg and bleed off the pressure about 3 times with the pressure valve on the lid. This purges out the oxygen as it is lighter than CO2. Then I pop the lid off (you can see a nice cloud of CO2 in the keg) and rack. Pop the lid back on and again pressurized and bleed about 3 times to make sure all the oxygen is out.

Then you can force carbonate any way you wish.

[Jim W]

Allright Mr. Leave It In The Primary And It Will Be OK
I have already let you talk me into just keeping it in the primary for 3 weeks, then bottling, but it has been in the primary for three weeks already. Do you think it is ok for another week or 10 days? I was going to order my kegerator parts, and CO2 tank this weekend.

[Chris Norrick]

My last brew (the gumballhead clone) was in for a little over 4 weeks and it is Damn Tasty. I'm drinking some right now...

[Jim W]

Good enough for me. I'll wait until next weekend.
Do you think we could come up with a recipe for the Gumballhead Clone using extracts?

[JohnD]

Jim, most liquid wheat extract is about 60% wheat, 40% barley, which is real close to proportions for Gumballhead. Then just find out the O.G. and you can adapt the recipe.

[Chris Norrick]

This recipe (might be the one on Chris's Brew365.com) uses 57% White Wheat, 36% Pale Malt, and 6% Cara Caravienne. OG is 1.055. So you could get very close with the extract. It uses lots of Amarillo hops. I also added in some Sorachi Ace in there somewhere. I don't think I used Cara Caravienne either as all I have in stock is Cara 20. I used WLP001 Cal Ale yeast and fermented a little cold for the first few days. Around 64 or so, then let the rise up through 70 or so over a week after that.

I think I lost a lot of my expected dry hop aroma due to the hop trub stuck all over the side of the carboy (out of the liquid) from the rising and falling krausen. I hate wasting Amarillo! I'm sure I got something out of it.

[Alcoholics Agronomist]

Jim,
I printed off a clone recipe for Gumballhead the other day. Give me a shout and I can get you a copy.
JJ

[Jim W]

I racked from the primary to the keg today. Norrick will be proud, 4.5 weeks in the primary. I have two questions. First, I put 9lbs on each tank. However, they are not refrigerated, is that OK? Refrig will be here tomorrow. Second, one of the posts was wanting to leak. I really cranked it on there and got it to seal. It was almost like the gasket on the metal tube left it too high, and I couldn't get enough threads to bite. Any ideas?
Anything similar?